Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

Book Review: Don Mann’s four thrillers about Thomas Crocker and his SEAL Team Six guys

When it comes to Navy SEALS, Don Mann is the real deal. He was an active duty Navy SEAL for seventeen years, including eight years on SEAL Team Six. As he describes his experiences:

As a member of Seal Team Six for over eight years and a SEAL for over 17 years, he worked in countless covert operations, operating from land, sea, and air, and facing shootings, decapitations, and stabbings. He was captured by the enemy and lived to tell the tale, and he participated in highly classified missions all over the globe, including Somalia, Panama, El Salvador, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

In addition to (or as augmentation for) his role as a SEAL, Mann is also a high endurance athlete, who has been in over 1,000 races (mostly extreme runs that make marathons look like a walk in the park). At one time, he was the 38th highest ranked triathlete in the world.

I received Kindle copies of all four SEAL Team Six novels from a book review site with which I’m affiliated. The reason behind this largesse was the fact that the official publication date for the fourth book is May 13. With my fondness for Navy SEALs and for thrillers, it was a foregone conclusion that I would gobble the books down all at once. I managed to read all four in a day-and-a-half. Looking back, this was a mistake. Because they are formulaic, reading them one on top of each other, without a decent interval of a few months between each one, highlighted their mechanical qualities and threw their flaws into relief. I think I would have liked them more had I read them less.

Before I get too deep into this, let me say that I have no problem with formulaic books. Most authors have a template they use, and readers keep returning to their books because they like that template. A perfect example of this is Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, the 18th of which (Never Go Back : A Jack Reacher Novel) I had just finished reading just before I picked up Mann’s series.

The Reacher novels are pleasantly predictable: Ex-military cop Jack Reacher wanders aimlessly and across the United States and invariably stumbles upon grotesquely violent criminals who leave a wide swath of destruction in their wake until Reacher comes along and turns them into mulch. What makes the books work is Reacher’s character. He should be ridiculous, because he’s something of a superman, able to out-reason and out-fight every bad guy he comes across. Take away his impulse to be on the side of the gods, and he’d be a monster.

In fact, though, Child has made Reacher a very interesting character, because he walks us through Reacher’s logical process: What does Reacher notice as the bad guys approach him? How does he analyze the situation? What moral decisions is he making as part of this analysis? What tactics does he decide upon and why? And finally, how effective were his chosen tactics when he finally used them? Child puts you directly into the brain of a type of savant, a man preternaturally skilled at analyzing dangerous situations and turning them to his advantage.

Child’s books are also meticulously plotted. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Child is a massive stoner. He’s got the kind of obsessive attention to detail that makes sense only if someone is ripped on a drug that makes the hard work of imagining and writing such details fun, rather than deadly dull. Indeed, Child’s attention to fascinating details is so good that one can forgive the absence of an actual plot. For example, Child’s last book, Never Go Back, had an insanely stupid, lame denouement, something that’s antithetical to denouements. After all, a thriller, even if it can’t be thrilling, should at least be interesting.

When it comes to Never Go Back, though, Child didn’t even try. Still, Reacher is such an enjoyable character, you want to read the book anyway, and are willing to forgive Child his sins as a writer at least long enough to read the next Reacher book (should there be one).

Mann’s formulaic novels aren’t as good as Child’s book, but they’re not bad. Had I read them spread out over months, in the order in which they were published, I probably would have enjoyed them more than I did.

I know this sounds as if I’m damning Mann’s books with faint praise, and maybe I am. I need to make a full disclosure here, which is that I soured on the books about halfway through the third and in the beginning of the fourth. My low-level ill-will arose for a very specific reason, which is that Mann’s and my biases clashed.

In both the third and fourth books, Mann attacks the Israeli military. In the third book, it’s a completely gratuitous swipe about the Israeli special forces not being as good as they think they are. In the fourth book, the opening scene includes a quite detailed swipe at the Israeli military, implying that its members are rule-bound, cold-blooded, vindictive cowards. This might have been forgivable if this detailed scene had related to the rest of the book, but it didn’t. By book’s end, it’s clear that this anti-IDF sideline wasn’t necessary to the main plot. Mann just felt he wanted it in there.

There is absolutely nothing antisemitic about Mann’s negative attitude towards the Israeli military, and I respect that fact. It’s clear that Mann dislikes it as a military, not as a Jewish military. I got the strong feeling that, at one time, or over a period of several times, Mann had some bad experiences with the IDF and he’s using his novels as a place to vent his negative feelings.

Being spiteful is Mann’s prerogative — and it’s my prerogative to get unpleasantly ruffled because of that spite. I’m certain that the IDF has rotten apples in it, since all militaries do. I have no idea whether the IDF and its special forces are overrated, but it’s entirely possible that they are . . . or not. Nevertheless, I do feel that it was wrong for Mann to take self-serving, unnecessary swipes at a military that is on the side of the angels in the long war against the worldwide hydra of Islamic militants (along with the American military). Israel is a sufficiently beleaguered nation to deserve some respite from creative vindictiveness. The clash between Mann’s bias (not thrilled about the Israeli military) and my bias (supportive of the IDF) definitely dimmed my pleasure in his writing.

And now, finally, my review. All four books have the same pattern. Thomas Crocker is Mann’s alter ego: he looks like Mann (mustache and thinning hair), he exercises like Mann (taking his team on extreme climbs in the Himalayas or extreme runs in the Sahara desert), and he works like Mann once did, heading a SEAL Team Six unit tasked with dangerous secret missions. The book isn’t written in the first person, but we see everything through Crocker’s eyes and hear his thoughts. He loves his country; hates the enemy; worries about the damage to his soul from the deaths he’s caused; cares for his team; loves his wife and his daughter, whom he constantly leaves behind because missions take precedence; looks at his rough childhood as the crucible that created the warrior that he now is; sublimates fear; and manages to continue moving despite the fact that he’s invariably concussed, wounded, bleeding, and sleep deprived.

Crocker’s teammates are more literary ciphers than real characters. They exist to move the plot forward. Akil, the team’s navigator, is the Egyptian-born Muslim who came to America as a child, is a stalwart defender of America’s freedoms against Iran’s Islamic totalitarianism and, when he’s not being incredibly brave and disciplined, thinks only of sex. Mancini, the team’s weapons expert, is also the book’s expositor. He’s a know-it-all with a photographic memory/ Wherever the book takes the team, he will offer commentary about the sights they see, the nature of the enemy, the weather, etc. In other words, because the omniscient narrator never drops away from Crocker’s viewpoint, it’s up to Mancini to fill the reader in on everything Crocker cannot know. The other term members are given names and details (beard, wife, smile, fiancée, etc.), but are sufficiently ill-defined as characters to be completely forgettable.

One of the two things I’ve taken away about SEALs from the non-fiction books I’ve read is that they are trained, and trained, and trained, and then trained some more. The other thing that sticks in my brain is that they meticulously prepare for every mission. Mann has realized that an action novel that spends too much time detailing all of the SEAL’s meticulous preparation will work best as a sleep aid, rather than a thriller. Ironically, though, by avoiding all the mission detail, what Mann ends up with is a group of SEALs who rush unprepared into just about everything. If it weren’t for their highly trained skills and their really cool weapons, these guys would be morons, doing everything by the seat of their pants and getting into big trouble because of it.

In the first three books, the team’s missions involve Iranian infiltration in North Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the last book, his team takes on a Mexican drug cartel. In all four books, the team is constantly frustrated by politics, especially those emanating from the CIA, which is given over to extreme political cowardice. In all four books, good people die, good people get wounded, bad people get horribly killed, and innocents get rescued. The good guys usually prevail, but it’s a painful, demoralizing, bloody, bloody process.

I’d be more specific at this point, but I can’t. Having read all four of the books in the same 48-hour period, they’ve run together in my mind, leaving only an overarching pattern without any defining details jumping out at me.

Looking at all four books a little temporal distance (I read the last one on Tuesday), I think the following is a fairly objective summary: These books are not great, but they’re not bad. They’re workmanlike thrillers that give some insight into (1) the never-ending training in which SEALs engage; (2) the enormous toll their work takes on their private life; (3) the terrible risks they take, partly out of love of country and partly because they’re very courageous adrenalin junkies; and (4) the genuine dangers in today’s world against which our armed forces and special forces protect us. If you’re looking for a quick, easy-to-read, fairly interesting military thriller, you could do a lot worse than Don Mann’s SEAL Team Six series. They won’t win any prizes, but they’ll definitely keep you entertained.

I read all of Michael Crichton’s books in a week and a half. Formulaic. The woman is at fault; usually her greediness. She’ll lie, manipulate. She’s usually under qualified. It got to be a drag by the time I got to the last one.

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

Weed makes it harder for emotions to be controlled. It especially freezes emotional maturation and emotional-cognitive balance when taken early. Dangerous liability in combat or when motor skills are required. But people who want to tap into their creative side and want to work long hours without being bored or un entertained, weed is their chosen entertainment. But the idea that everyone is like that, that it will do them no harm, is the mentality of a child. The child likes A, so everyone who is good must like A, right? That isn’t reality, life isn’t fair, and a child’s lack of emotional maturation shows itself in many things. But the adult that smokes weed thinks through the lenses of a child but thinks his weed induced thinking is mature and adult. It isn’t. Whether that’s a danger or not depends on the person. After all, a writer would lose his life if he lost the use of his dominant arm. Whereas a marathon runner that lost an arm, would prefer it to losing a leg.
“Dangerous” really depends on the individual. And only a weed induced childhood magickal thinking emotion of rule, would think uniformity is logickal.
Nobody is as good as they think they are. In that sense, neither is the Israeli military. Any top down hierarchy will have the same flaws as any other top down hierarchy. You can pretty much separate out the system from the origin point. Just think of it as if Hussein was the one running the place and you’d get the picture soon enough. I call this compartmentalization. It removes the influence of one’s own mental biases by locking the scenario in a box and excluding external, real world, conclusions from affecting it. It’s also used to lock up one’s own personality and memory as a traumatic defense against brainwashing, but that’s probably a much rarer application. If people were as good as they thought they were, improvement would be rather lacking as the motivation would be lacking.

http://bookwormroom.com Bookworm

I think that’s exactly right on all points, Ymarsakar.

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

I read the article further, concerning Childs. It was interesting he noted that his first 1 and 2 sexual experience was also paired with the weed experience. I remember some things I did before and after 14, but I consider them immature given the context at the time from my perch right now. Although I was a very strange child that would think strange thoughts such as when I answered the question from my peers of, “what would you do if a beautiful woman was naked on your bed when you came home” with the instantaneous reaction of “isn’t she an assassin and I need to get out of the house immediately”… although even I knew back then not to say such things in public. Although the person I am right now, pretty much ignores that rule now as I see fit. Their reaction was predictable for boys their age, constantly thinking about sex. Well, you can’t have sex if you get honey trapped and killed/tortured, now can you. Bet kids never thought of that.

Childs’ success as a novel writer comes from his tapping into his rage at certain parties, and a society that treats such an outlet as paid entertainment and valuable entertainment. Well, that is as it is for human societies. Although for people like me, that stuff isn’t really entertainment any more. Since, after all, I can do similar things like that just walking out my door. All I need is a target. It isn’t escapist fantasy or entertainment for me, it’s more of a blueprint plan with positive and negative consequences.

Weed is great at harnessing the emotion and pleasure one experienced in one’s youth, as an adult. I’ve seen and known 35 year olds with the mental maturity of 15 year olds, when it came to interpersonal relationships such as parental authority and resistance to parental advice. Weed? Oh yea, weed was part of the maturation or lack of maturation. I’ve cross referenced a few different sources on this matter as well. Whereas the only source weed users cross reference is their own biased experiences, which I often note isn’t a good idea to use a drug user’s idea of what the drug is, to determine the value to human experimentation and drug effects. So when it comes to writing novels harnessing the natural human rage at injustice, weed can certainly remind a person of all the things they hated and wanted to destroy.

However, for people like me, self control is much more important to living a peaceful life in a lawful society. The problem of people like me is not that we forget about rage and various stuff we should do to people. The problem of people like me is that we feel certain things too strongly and then do something about it, which isn’t wise. So our situation is different. We don’t need to feel the experiences of injustice and the natural reaction of rage to it, we need to feel the opposite. And in that sense, weed is not a good idea. Nor are other drugs, combat related ones even.

The last thing you want someone to be experiencing when he is cleaning a gun or doing maintenance on a weapon of mass destruction, is the pleasure of his sexual experience as a youth or his rage against society and petty or great injustices. That tends to not be good for form. Guns can go off in such situations (guns are like that, evil magickal demonic swords, dontcha know). There are certain individuals, real life individuals, that I would consider as a Weapon, and sometimes even a Weapon of Mass Destruction in the right circumstances.

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

Also, adrenaline and endorphin rush in a fight for life or against death, that stuff is far superior than external drugs, natural or artificial.

So even for adrenaline junkies, weed isn’t really necessary and far too risky for the benefits. So yeah, some people who like combat really are just adrenaline junkies. In the literal sense of the meaning. This makes little sense except for top level athletes or people who have experienced pain + endorphins. Drugs are supposed to pro long life and for entertainment, right? Why would anyone put on a squirrel suit and go air diving across mountains for entertainment? That wouldn’t make sense, right. Well… depends on the person.

lee

I don’t think one can “compare” the IDFv with many militaries. The are few places where the military is as acutely aware that of they screw up, it’s not just they, but their families who will be slaughtered. American troops, with Iraq and Afghanistan, could generally, once they rotated back home, out of theater, could breathe and feel safe again. (Well, outside Ft. Hood…) Israeli soldiers are never safe. They could be on a weekend pass, picking up a slice from Sbarro’s, or celebrating a Seder. Or just riding a bus… They appear to lack discipline, but they really are very disciplined. Very. There’s a certain irony that he implies they’re “rule bound” since most military people I know think the IDF is to lax.

I also find too politically correct to have one of his team members be a patriotic Moslem. Perhaps there is a little more anti-Semitism to his hatred of the IDF…

I’ll skip reading any of these. Really have NO desire to read anyone who portrays IDF soldiers as “rule-bound, cold-blooded, vindictive cowards.”

jj

You have to be careful about consuming any writer’s entire output in one gulp. Small swallows work better. When you suck it down all at once, you’ll find out more about even a good writer, a non-formulaic one, than you probably want to know. You’ll discover their favorite color; their favorite homily from grandma; their favorite cliche; their favorite image; simile; metaphor, etc. There are favorite things they repeat, and don’t really realize they’re doing it because the pace of the writing and publishing is a lot slower than the reading. Even for somebody quite quick it’ll be at least a year between books, enough time to not remember you already said that, though perhaps in a somewhat different way.

Genuine producers of literature will typically take a couple of years between books, forgetting a greater percentage of what they already said. I’m sure Graham Greene, for example, was perfectly aware that his favorite color was mauve, and was doubtless aware that he mentioned the fact here and there, but probably not aware he mentioned it in every single book he wrote. Enough time elapsed between their production for him, his agent, his editor, and his publisher not to spot it, but read ten of his books – twenty years’ production – in a week and it jumps up and bites you in the nose. Those who write to formula are best read with at least a few months between their books, otherwise you get a quite definite feeling that it’s really all one book.

http://ymarsakar.wordpress.com Ymarsakar

Book, the Japanese writers like to tell stories with interesting subordinate and side characters in the various war and life/death drama subjects. Generally it’s not just one person leading the charge. They could never acquire the power to do so, without others loaning the leader the power of the followers. This breaks down hierarchical systems in much more detail, something Westerners tend to gloss over as they go gaga over British royalty. The West pretends people, or just everyone, are equal. Meanwhile the class and caste systems that divide us from Hussein, everybody assumes that is reality but never makes note of it. That’s not equality, you know. That’s just what the slaves think equality looks like.

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